191 Ellen Street - The Gardener's Co-op / Jansen Produce

© 2019, Christian Cassidy

Place: The Gardener's Co-op / Jansen Produce
Address: 191 Ellen Street (Map)
Constructed: 1946
Architect: Unknown

This building, soon be demolished, was part of Winnipeg's "Fruit Row" and housed a predecessor of what we know today as "Peak of the Market".

September 9, 1938, Winnipeg Tribune

The Gardener's Wholesale, a co-op of 36 Winnipeg-area gardeners, was created in 1936. Its purpose was to purchase in bulk the seeds its members would need and to sell the produce they produced.

Bill Daman of St. Vital was the organization's first president and James Connery, also of St. Vital, was vice president. Interestingly, around 70 per cent of the co-op members were of Dutch heritage.

The co-op's wholesale and trucking divisions were granted a new charter under the name The Winnipeg Gardeners Cooperative Ltd. in March 1946 and set their sights on becoming an even larger player in the city's wholesale vegetable market.

That summer, the co-op spent $100,000 on land at the corner of Ross Avenue and Ellen Street and constructed a new processing plant and warehouse. The location of the new facility was almost inevitable as Ross Avenue from Princess to Isabel streets had been nicknamed "Fruit Row" since the early 1900s for the many fruit and vegetable wholesalers it housed.

Work began in autumn on this single-storey with basement, cinder block building that measured 100 x 50 feet. It was built so that the main floor could be extended, (which it was at some point as the current building measures 184 x 111 feet), and a second storey could be added. It was completed by the end of the year, though its official opening took place once the plant was in full production on August 13, 1947.

July 9, 1947, Winnipeg Tribune

The co-op's pride and joy was the bunch vegetable washing machine. Operated by four people, it could clean 400 bunches an hour. It also had the city's only potato grading machine and a root washing machine for root vegetables.

A large cold storage room could hold produce for up to a month. This allowed for a steady, reliable supply of produce to their customers.

The vegetables sold by the co-op were marketed under a newly created brand name: "Peak of the Market".

December 31, 1949, Winnipeg Tribune

The new venture was a success. By 1954, there were 47 co-op members and sales topped the $750,000 mark. The co-op retired the $20,000 mortgage on the building later that year.

In 1957, the co-op created a marketing division called Gardeners Sales Ltd.

The co-op soon outgrew its building and leased additional warehouse space at 20 Derby Street. In 1961, it constructed a new facility on King Edward Street.

The provincial government's Manitoba Vegetable Marketing Commission, created in 1965, bought out the assets of the Gardeners Sales Company Ltd. / Gardeners Co-operative. In 1972, it was announced that the commission would be changed to a producer-led marketing board. This lives on today as "Peak of The Market".

May 11, 1938, Winnipeg Tribune

As for the building, after the co-op vacated in 1961 it soon became home to Jansen Produce.

Jansen began as Jansen Bros. in the early 1930s. John, Karel and Wilhelm Jensen from Arnhem Holland came to Manitoba in the 19-teens and each went into farming and became market gardeners. The main Jansen Bros. farm was in Headingley.

They joined forces in the early 1930s as Jansen Bros. wholesale market gardeners and rented a small storage space in a building on William Avenue through which they could sell their produce.

Thanks to landing some large contracts, such as supplying CNR passenger train service / VIA Rail in 1938, they moved to a larger warehouse at 398 Ross Avenue on Fruit Row.

Jansen Bros. was a family affair as sons of the founders joined the firm when they got old enough. (To give a sense of how much a family firm it was, there were eight people with the last name Jansen listed as working at the company in 1962.)

In late 1961, with the next generation of Jansens in place, including Edward and Wilfred, the company made another move to this larger plant at 191 Ellen Street at Ross Avenue.

November 30, 1972, Winnipeg Free Press

The name of the firm was changed to Jansen Produce in 1965.

Various newspaper ads in the 1960s and 1970s show that Jansen supplied many large companies,  including VIA Rail, The Keg, University of Manitoba and A & W.

The company was also a supporter of women's curling. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, the runner-up award for the Manitoba Ladies Curling Association City Championship was the Jansen Produce Cup.

Jansen Produce was bought by Codville Company in 1977, though Codville kept the Jansen name and Wilfred continued to manage it until his retirement in 1984. It was after that that the "Jansen Produce" name disappeared from newspapers.

Since that time, this building has been used as warehouse space.

Architect's drawing from rezoning application

The building was sold in 2017 and in April 2019 a rezoning application will be heard to change the property to “RMF-L”, Residential Multi-Family (Large), to allow for the building's demolition and the construction of a three-storey, 47 unit, non-profit housing block.

Update: The rezoning was granted and the new housing project will be known as Ellen / Ross Community Housing. Construction will begin in Spring 2021.